


Defiance

by Recourse



Series: Damaged Goods [3]
Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Post-Canon, Post-Game(s), Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-10
Updated: 2016-05-13
Packaged: 2018-06-07 13:40:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6807304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Recourse/pseuds/Recourse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For sixteen years following the sacrifice of Chloe, Max hasn't used her time-travel abilities. When she finally does, and everything starts all over again, she knows what the solution is. But this time, she's not willing to go along with it.</p><p>Follows on from <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/6687919/chapters/15296155">"Little Blue Pills"</a> and <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/6771145/chapters/15543541">"Still She Dreams of Storms."</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Denial

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry.

The Victoria Project is complete.

Max looks over at her and can’t help but smile, can’t help but run that sentence over and over in her head. As they walk out of the hotel together, Max catches herself just staring. Tori’s hair shines in the hot summer sun, back to blonde now, cut artfully into what Tori calls “the most lesbian look” specifically for this showing. So maybe she’s still a little on the prickly side, but it tends to be directed towards the people who deserve it these days, and Max isn’t gonna fight her on being a little smug and antagonistic towards the owner of the Chase Space. As long as it doesn’t go too far.

She’s started wearing a little more makeup again, too, keeps her hair out of her eyes, and she’s no longer just shuffling around in boring, practical clothes. Those hot-pink short-shorts certainly couldn’t be called practical. Or modest. Max is a big fan. She even likes to see Tori’s old cutting scars out in the open. It means she’s brave enough to show them now.

( _“What’s all this?” Max asks, waving her hand over the spilled contents of Tori’s shopping bag, spread out over the counter._

_“You can read, Max.”_

_“Yeah, and it’s like three tons of foundation and mascara and what is all this, even. Where did this come from?”  
_

_“_ _I feel like it.”_

_“And you didn’t before?”  
_

_Tori brushes her hair out of her eyes. “I didn’t feel like I deserved it before. To be pretty.”_

_“You_ are _pretty.”_

_“Biased opinion, discarded.” Tori shrugs. “It just gave me these memories, the kind of person I was at Blackwell, so I kind of overcompensated. I do that, you know.”_

_“You definitely do that.”_

_“So I figured...maybe I can try this again too. I always liked it, I just think I was doing it for the wrong reasons.”_

_Max gives her a kiss on the cheek. “Then have fun.”_ )

“Max, you okay? You’re spacing hard,” Tori informs her with a smile. “Am I just too beautiful? Do I need to tone it down?”

Max takes a quick look around them, standing under the bus shelter. It’s a pretty quiet little street, and the sun seems about ready to set, giving Max and Victoria a lovely tableau, the two of them alone in a busy city like some kind of Miyazaki movie. Max makes up her mind right then, digging into her bag for her instant camera. This, somehow, feels like the perfect time, for the perfect photo, Tori Chase finally happy and gracefully sliding into middle age alongside her. Tori just smiles and leans against the bus stop sign, waiting for Max’s picture.

Max is eternally grateful that she never lost this camera, as expensive as film for it is now. Having it around feels right. Even if it still ties the both of them to Blackwell, it’s also just got rustic charm about it. Even Tori feels it, the way she’s so careful whenever she handles Max’s bag. And the instant photos, while not anything she submits to galleries these days, make perfect scrapbook pieces.

She steps back from Tori, almost halfway down the block, just to get the perfect shot where it’s perfectly obvious how alone she is, and yet how she dominates the backdrop of Seattle with her height, her easy posture, her shining hair.

She’s so focused on the viewfinder that she doesn’t hear the car coming.

As soon as she snaps the photo it blows right past her, a silver sports car swerving its way down the road. Tori breaks her pose and starts to back away from the sign, but Max sees it coming like it’s in slow motion, the jerk of the steering wheel, the sudden increase of speed, like the driver hit the wrong pedal. Tori crumples at the waist as the hood hits her. Her feet lift off the ground. The car slams her straight into the side of the hotel, and her head jerks back and slams into it, then falls back onto the hood.

Max drops her camera and breaks into a run, numb, her world shrunken to just this sidewalk, just that immobile mass pinned between the car and the wall. She hears the car door opening but she doesn’t stop, she presses herself against the car and grabs Tori’s hands and they don’t move. There’s blood running down the back of her neck. Her brown eyes stare blankly into crumpled metal. Max takes Tori’s head in her hands and begs and pleads for her to say something. For her eyes to move. For the trickle of blood from her mouth to stop. There’s a ringing in Max’s ears. The rhythmic pound of her heartbeat as the driver stumbles out and cries and tries to talk. The sight of red running down Tori’s bare legs, flowing from where the car pins her. The stains on the golden butterfly pendant that Max had given her for her thirtieth birthday.

It comes back like an instinct.

The silver straightens back into place. Tori flies forward, chasing the car as it reverses back down the street in a wobbly path, until she’s back on her feet again. Until she’s leaning against the sign again. The car backs away down a corner, out of sight. Max slowly walks through the monochrome world, her hand stretched out before her, listening to the reversing soundtrack of life, until she hears Tori’s voice. She clenches her fingers into a fist.

“...tone it down?”

Max breathes, stares down the street, but her camera’s back in her bag now. “Woah, Max,” Tori says, putting a hand on her shoulder. “You okay?”

Max nods. “Yeah. Yeah.” She takes Tori’s hand and tugs her a little further down the sidewalk, away from the sign.

“Seriously, Max, you’re kind of freaking me out,” Tori says, flexing her fingers in Max’s grip. “Or are you just nervous about meeting my mom?”

“A-a little nervous,” Max lies. “I mean, you got pretty pissed when she sent that invitation...”

“I broke a nail,” Tori admits. “Felt good, though. I’m good, I really am. I’ve gotten so famous with my _girl_ friend that she can’t fuckin’ help but invite me if they don’t want people to talk shit about her—”

And then the car flies around the corner, swerving again, and Max puts out her hand, ready to rewind, but it blows right past them, curves, and smashes through the sign and straight into the wall. Max embraces Tori and clings, shakes wracking her body.

“Holy shit!” Tori exclaims. “Fuck, Max, come on, we gotta see if he’s okay.”

Max can’t let go, she can’t, and she knows her tears are totally gonna stain Tori’s top, but—

“Max, I love you too, but _Jesus_ ,” Tori says as she scrambles out of Max’s arms. She runs over to the car door, then steps back as the driver, just a kid, really, opens it and stumbles out, looking a little beat-up. But the airbag deployed, and he was wearing a seatbelt. Tori starts telling him off about “social responsibility and shit” as Max hugs herself and tries to wipe that blank brown stare from her mind.

 

* * *

 

“I have to admit, Victoria, I didn’t think you would come.”

Max feels Tori bristle at her full name, like she’s a cat trying to make herself look big. The showing’s been going well so far, even if Max and Tori have mostly been hanging in this corner by the window and answering questions a little more tersely than usual. But then Tori’s mom had to come over.

“And why’s that?” Tori says, biting her _T_ s hard. Max takes her hand and runs her thumb over the back of her palm. Trying to say _calm down, don’t make this bad_ without breaking their unity in front of this graying old woman.

“Well, ever since you were eighteen you’ve been systematically cutting me off until your professional e-mail was the only way I could reach you,” Maribeth says, and that’s where the tongue comes from. Definitely.

“Funny. I hadn’t noticed.”

“Victoria—”

“Tori.”

Maribeth rolls her eyes. “Honey, I named you.”

“That seriously the hill you wanna die on right now, mom?” Max can see the tension in Tori’s face. Feel it in her fingers. “Are we keeping this professional or not? Let me know now, ‘cuz I could just start screaming at you for a thousand pretty good reasons.”

“Professional,” Maribeth says with a nod.

“Then use my _professional_ name.”

“Tori, please, I’m just trying to understand why my only child has been...” Maribeth looks out the window and sighs. “Has stayed so far apart.”

“I dunno. Let’s try that e-mail I got in 2020. You know the one? The one where Dad said ‘this is the last straw’ after someone took a picture of me and Jackie?” Tori’s face curls into a familiar sneer.

“Tori, that was a long time—”

“About nine years ago, yeah. Haven’t really felt the need to forgive him for that one. Or, for, you know. Disowning me.”

“We never actually filed the paperwork,” Maribeth admits.

“That’s very nice. I don’t really give a shit.”

“Tori,” Max warns quietly.

“Your father is dead—”

“Don’t really give a shit about that, either.”

“I tried to invite you to the funeral—”

“Yeah, somehow your letter got to me in Bosnia. I shredded it.” Max hears the note of triumph in Tori’s voice as Maribeth seems to physically shrink away from the two of them. “Go ahead, keep trying to guilt-trip me. That really worked out for you the last, oh, thirty-four years you’ve been doing it. I really ended up right where you wanted me, didn’t I? I mean, I guess I am exhibiting my work in the high art galleries now. Look at how far I’ve come,” Tori says, sweeping her hand over the milling populace of the Chase Space.

“I...” Maribeth seems to choke on her words. “I am very proud of you, Tori.”

“Bullshit.”

“I am,” Maribeth says, stepping closer. “And every day, I regret that I...that we pushed you away. I know we didn’t give you the best childhood—”

“Understatement of the century—”

“Tori, please, she’s trying to apologize,” Max whispers, squeezing Tori’s hand. “Like you did to me.”

Tori closes her eyes and takes a sharp breath. When she opens them again, they’re a bit gentler. “You’re really lucky I have such a nice _girl_ friend,” Tori says, acid still in her voice.

“I know I am.”

“What?”

“I’ve watched your work, before and since you and Miss Caulfield here started...collaborating. She’s been...she’s been very good for you.” Maribeth clasps her shaking hands together and stares at them. “We were wrong. We tried to change you into something you weren’t, instead of encouraging who you were becoming. I think we did a lot of damage, trying to make you into the perfect daughter. But despite that, you still... you still are.” She draws in a deep breath. “I’m not asking for forgiveness, for whatever else we did that hurt you. I just wanted you to know that I think you’re brilliant and talented, you and your...your girlfriend. And I am so proud.”

Tori blinks. Quite a few times. She clears her throat, then looks down at Max with pleading eyes.

“I...I actually thought I might buy a few of these, for permanent display...” Maribeth says in a hopeful waver.

Max gives Tori a smile and a nod, and releases her hand.

“Yeah,” Tori says. “Yeah, here, which ones?”

As Maribeth leads Tori off into the gallery, Max turns to look at the window. Snow drifts down from the cloudless sky, lingering in the light that spills out of the building into the night.


	2. Bargaining

Tori’s a little buzzed. A little. She’d needed a few glasses of champagne to dull her edge around her mother, and she’d still nearly caused a scene. But now it’s over, and she’s with Max again, and Max is so fucking cute, still. Even though she’s been kinda weird today. Since that drunk driver thing.

Tori drapes an arm around Max as they head for the door. Tori doesn’t want to think about almost getting killed. She wants to think about Max’s hair, pretty in its sloppy little ponytail. Kind of soft against her cheek when she leans into Max’s side. She remembers when it used to be all scraggly and uneven and scratchy. Tori put a stop to that months ago. Plus, it's an excuse to shower together. She wants to think about her freckled shoulders, under that simple pink dress. And all the other freckles.

But as Max leads her outside, she stops. Something’s wrong. It sparkles suspended in the streetlights. It floats down onto her head and melts immediately, running down her face. It fills the air with an unearthly glow as light bounces off its edges. It’s snowing. In fucking July.

Tori’s foggy mind starts processing everything at once. Max tugging her away at the bus stop. Max clinging to her after the crash. Max’s uncharacteristic silence tonight, only light pushes, no cute little puns or soft words or quick touches or kisses. Max saying, “I can rewind time.” Max’s proof. Max saying, “On the first day, it snowed.” Max’s fear, right now, as she clings to Tori and tries to take them home.

She pulls away from Max, trying to think, trying to say something, trying to ignore the animal panic on Max’s face. But she can’t phrase this delicately. “Max, what the fuck did you do?”

“I—nothing, I—” Max is stammering. She’s always been a shitty liar, but she hasn’t had to lie to Tori, possibly ever. So what the fuck.

“Max, it is fucking _snowing_.”

“How is that my fault?”

“Max, don’t fucking—”

Max cocks her head at the door, where people are still occasionally emerging, and giving them weird stares. Tori fumes for a second, pacing back and forth in front of Max, putting her hands to her forehead. “Jesus. Jesus Christ.”

“Let’s go home,” Max whispers. “Please.”

“You weren’t supposed to fucking do this, you said you’d _never_ —”

“ _Please_ ,” Max urges again, and it’s almost a sob, and Tori’s anger drains out of her. She steps forward and cradles Max in her arms.

“Jesus Christ,” she murmurs again. “You...you really did it, didn’t you?”

Max just sniffles and buries her face in Tori’s shoulder. “Please.”

Tori sighs, her pulse pounding in her veins, head spinning with the reality of what Max has done. With the unreality of what’s going to happen over the next four days, if the pattern holds.

Fuck. _Fuck._

She pulls away from Max and holds her hand tight, waving the other for a cab. This is going to be the worst conversation of her entire life. And that might include the night before Christmas Break.

 

* * *

 

As soon as they step into the hotel room, Tori slams the door and grabs Max by the shoulders. “What the fuck did you do? _Answer me_ this time,” she demands, staring into Max’s blank blue eyes.

“You died.” Max’s voice is a whimper. “He crashed into you. Because I was taking a picture.”

Tori knew. She knew, that’s the only reason Max would ever, ever turn back time again. But the words still hit her like a truck. She reels back and braces herself against the bed. “Shit,” she offers eloquently, her skin pricking up from her fingers to her neck. She’s dead, that’s what that means. She’s supposed to be dead. She _has_ to be dead or everyone dies. That’s the way this works. That’s what Max said. You can’t alter time without the universe fracturing into pieces and killing everyone.

Tori’s dead. Tori is a dead woman walking.

“Tell me you can fix this,” Tori breathes.

“I—”

“Tell me you can kill me again. Like Chloe.”

“I don’t know.” Max slumps against the door, gripping her camera bag tight. “I can’t. I can’t do it all over again. I _can’t._ ”

“Max, God, you _have to_. I can’t—I turned into a total wreck because I almost killed one person. I can’t...How many people would die because of me, if we just kept going?”

“I don’t know,” Max repeats. “W-we could...we need to figure this out, find out what makes this power do this to the world, maybe we could just run away to an island somewhere and hunker down and the storm will pass and—”

“And what? I’m still fucking up the timeline just by being alive, right? Doesn’t that mean things just keep getting more fucked up?” Tori’s hand shakes on her knee. “What the fuck comes after the storm, Max? Does gravity stop working? Does the earth crack in half? What the _fuck_ are we even dealing with?”

“I can’t,” Max whispers.

“Max—”

“I can’t watch you die again.”

“So you can fix it?”

“I...”

Tori gets up and wrenches the camera bag off of Max’s shoulders, then sits down in front of her. She searches through the bag until her fingers touch film. She draws out the photo. But something’s off about it, like the ones Max showed her back at her parents’ house. As she holds it in the light, the image of herself against the Seattle backdrop flickers in and out with the angle, like some holographic illusion. “When did you take this?” Tori asks.

“T—that’s the one I was getting when he killed you. It shouldn’t even exist. I took it out of another timeline.” Max curls into the fetal position. “I can’t.”

“Max, you have to.” Tori reaches forward and tries to force the photo under Max’s eyes, keep it there, make her ‘fall in’ like she says she does, she has to fix this, she has to fix this _now_ before Tori can consider how horrible it’s going to be.

“ _No_.”

Max lifts her hands to her face and just sobs, each sound tearing at Tori’s heart, filling her limbs with lead, her mind soaking in the blood that’s coming for them both. She drops the photograph and reaches for Max, holds her tight. The orange light of the streetlamps reflects off the falling snow, sending diffuse illumination through the glass balcony doors. It’s near as bright as day, even with none of the lights on. It’s ethereal. Unreal. Like this whole situation.

Tori cries for Max, too. And for Chloe. And for Kate. And everyone else who died in that week of Hell Max had gone through all those years ago.

“P-please,” Max stammers. “Let me stay with you. Don’t make me go back until the storm comes. I swear, I’ll set things right, but I can’t, I can’t watch you die again today, I can’t. I love you so much.”

“I love you,” Tori repeats.

They struggle to their feet, still clinging to one another. Tori can’t function. She can’t think of the future that she knows is coming for them. So she just says, “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“We can wait. We can...we can try. And I don’t, I don’t wanna leave yet, either.”

“I w-wanted so many more years together, I wanted t-to retire with you and get an apartment and a cat and spend days in bed and and and...”

“Me too,” Tori chokes. “God, me too.”

“This is _bullshit,_ ” Max declares suddenly, her voice rough and hoarse. “This isn’t _fair_.”

It’s not. It’s so incredibly unfair. But there’s nothing they can do it about it, this time.

Tori squeezes Max again. And then she kisses her, like it’s their last one, because it is. It could be. It should be. If they’re gonna do anything right, it should be this. But the thought of leaving Max all alone to deal with this, _again_ , sickens Tori more than she can say. What if she just kills herself, this time? What if she gets drawn into another shitty, awful, broken relationship that takes twelve years to fix? How can the world do this to her again? Even though Tori’s dead, it’s Max who’s on her mind, what this all means for her. She hates it. She hates God, in this moment, more than anything in the world.

But.

“Four more days,” Tori whispers. “Four more.”

Max nods violently.

Maybe He, or It or whatever it is that gave Max her powers, is just giving them a little more time together. Maybe that’s all it can do without tearing the universe apart at the seams. Maybe that’s what it was doing for Max and Chloe. Tori can buy that, for now. She would give anything for more time. Four years isn’t enough. Eternity isn’t enough. But she’ll take what’s she’s given. It seems like the only choice.


	3. Depression

Their lovemaking is quiet that night. It’s not the animal attraction that usually flares up whenever Max lets it, leading the two of them into sweaty, obscene, and most of all _loud_ ecstasy. Tori’s first touch is so light, so soft, that Max barely recognizes what she’s feeling as desire until it’s mixing with the pounding fear in her heart. They’re both shaking as they shift against each other under the covers, the eerie light from the nighttime snow casting strange shadows over them. Silhouettes in dim orange. The nerves tingling through Max’s body makes it feel almost like this is the first time, that what she’s worried about is doing a good job, pleasing Tori, making a special memory. But that’s not all that’s going into it. Their tears mingle together as they kiss.

 

Max wakes to a _thump_. She knows what it is before Tori says. “Stupid bird,” she curses, sitting up beside Max. Max waits for more. For the air to be filled with dull thuds, for the light of the rising sun to turn red from the blood coating the balcony door, for the sound of thunder and fury. But the morning is silent. Tori lays back down and puts an arm around Max. Max feels the weight of the camera bag across the room. That unreal photo. Could she even go into it? It’s from a whole other timeline. Does that mean if she enters it, it shifts her back into that timeline? Or just back to the point in time she took it, and she has to somehow re-adjust that reality so that...so that...

_Blank brown eyes blood on her legs blood on the pendant blood on the ground_

She shudders and curls up, squeezing her eyes closed. No, no, if she could just _witness_ it again, that would be bad enough. Would she have to _cause_ it? Not just go back and watch, but re-manipulate time just to kill Tori?

No.

She isn’t thinking about this. They have four days. They should live them like they’re their last. Unless they could...not be. Somehow, testing has to be done. It’s not like it matters if they tear time apart. They’re already doing that. It’s not like that bird’s dead, not really. The only one who’s dead is Tori. Forever. Again. _Again_.

Victoria beside her in the Dark Room, bound and drugged and crying. She went to Jefferson for help. Because Max warned her about the wrong person. Then Max blacks out. Then she’s gone.

She has to know.

Tori’s free of her usual tongue, today. She doesn’t insist that Max get up, that they get out in the city and see some sights, that they develop the film from Mexico already. She just lies there beside Max. Like a corpse.

So Max has to summon the will to move. To get up and think about this as she stares out over the city. Tori gets up behind her and throws on a long t-shirt, then grabs a cigarette and heads out to the balcony.

This would be the perfect time for a picture. Tori’s slumped posture against the railing. The golden light of sunrise. Smoke curls from the cigarette in her hand. She’s so beautiful. Still so beautiful, in her death. Even with the collapse of her usual poise, even though she’s still on those fucking cancer-sticks (though she’s cut back to only one or two a day), even, even, even. What right does a drunk driver have to take her away? What right does the universe that made her have to tear them apart? It’s been so much _work_. So much pain, so long spent wondering if things could have been different. They always could have, if the world didn’t insist on punishing Max.

Why even give her this power if it can’t save anyone? Wouldn’t it be easier to live without?

She has to know.

She pads out to the balcony, the wet wood cold on her bare feet. Steps over the pigeon’s corpse. She leans into Tori’s side. Smoke used to bother her more, but that had meant that she’d had to leave Tori alone on her breaks, and the peace of being with her, silent and contemplative, became a necessity the longer they were together. The stink of tobacco is something comforting, now. It means Tori’s close.

“So...” Tori’s word comes out in a puff of smoke. “What do we do with our last week?”

Max isn’t sure how to articulate her plan. But she has to know. “We...we need to go back to my parents’ house. To my Blackwell stuff.”

“Any reason?”

“I need to...to experiment.”

Tori sighs. “We know what we have to do, Max. Can’t we just pretend we don’t for a while? It’s been awesome, it really fucking has. I wouldn’t trade this for anything. Let’s just...” She sniffs and wipes away a tear. “Can we just enjoy each other? For a little longer? Stop fucking with everything and just...by all rights, I should’ve killed you at Blackwell. It’s bullshit that you survived. More bullshit that we ever got together. I never deserved it.”

Max hasn’t heard that line in a long time. “You deserve so much more.”

“I don’t, I don’t, God, Max—”

“I’ll tear time apart if it means I can save you,” Max promises. “We both deserve better.”

Tori slumps forward over the railing, one hand covering her face as she lets out a sob. “I fucking love you, Max,” she mumbles.

Max embraces her from behind, nuzzling her nose into Tori’s neck. She loves Tori, too. So much.

 

* * *

 

Ryan’s a little shocked to find them at the door, but he’s as welcoming as ever, and even compliments Tori on her new hairstyle. “Your mother’s at the store,” he informs them as they step inside. “What’s this about?”

“I’ve got some old photos I want to use for a new project in my room,” Max says. “The idea kind of snuck up on me.”

Ryan’s face darkens under his gray hair as they sit down at the kitchen table. “...going back to Blackwell again, huh?”

“Dad—”

“It just worries me,” he says with a sigh. Tori shifts uncomfortably next to her. “That was...it was the scariest time of our lives, for me and your mother. Getting that call...”

“Dad, really, I’m okay,” Max lies. “We already talked about this back when I made _Trapped in Time_.”

“It’s still not a good memory, Max.”

“I know. But it’s like I said last time. Sometimes you have to go back to know where you are now.” She knows exactly where she is. But Ryan doesn’t. She still hasn’t told him about Victoria’s role in that suicide attempt, all those years ago. That’s between her, her old therapist, and Tori.

“You...you know about all this, right?” Ryan asks, turning to Tori, who kind of looks like she’s caught in headlights. “And you’re okay with it?”

Tori nods. “We work together, Ryan. Always. Even if we _say_ it’s solo work. I’m looking out for her.”

“Well. Max trusts you, and I guess I have to trust her. I’ll make us some lunch, if you want to go poking around in there.”

Max leads Tori upstairs. They still haven’t really cleaned up her room and turned it into a guest bed like they keep threatening, but it’s not like Max left it covered in posters and dirty laundry or anything. Even her photos are gone from the walls, tucked into the special album in the bottom drawer of her dresser, the same one that holds the artifacts from a timeline that never happened. Tori sits down on the bed as Max draws out the album. It feels strange. All the photos feel kind of off when she handles them, too. They have an odd vibration around them, rippling through her fingers. Like the photo of Tori at the bus stop. And they all fade in and out depending on how she looks at them.

She takes a seat beside Tori and opens the album, flipping to the back. Most of them are pictures of Chloe. They’re the ones that proved everything, three years ago. Everyone knew that Max hadn’t seen or talked to Chloe since she’d returned to Arcadia Bay, so having an album full of weird unreal photos of the two of them together was enough for Tori to accept the rest of the story. That, and the photo of Warren and Max, twin moons in the sky behind them.

She’d found them in her bag when she returned from the funeral, sticking out of her journal. Another “gift”, she’d guessed, or a result of those pictures needing to exist in order for her to go back and let Chloe die, or...or something. Thinking about it always leads in circles.

“Those are still really freaky,” Tori opines.

“No argument there.” Max brushes her fingers over the best one. The best memory. _Photobomb! Photo-hog._

“So what’s the experiment, Max?”

“I—I’ve never tried going into one of these before. I mean, obviously.”

_I dare you to kiss me._

“Yeah...how is that gonna work?”

“I have no fucking clue.”

Tori barks a short, humorless laugh. “Well, at least you’re honest.”

Max’s eyes are watering too much to focus on the photo. Tori puts an arm around her.

“You don’t have to do this,” she whispers.

“I hate looking at these,” Max murmurs. “I hate it, I hate that it never happened, that I never...”

“You never what?”

“All that week, I thought I was just solving the mystery of Arcadia Bay. I thought I was destined to do it.” Max clenches her fingers on the edges of the album, and a tear falls onto the photo of her and Chloe, in bed together, the morning after their pool break-in. As it hits the film, the picture ripples like it’s made of liquid itself, just for a second, before it snaps back into place. Dry. “But I was falling in love, too. And I never...I never told her...”

“...I always had a feeling,” Tori admits. “After you told me.”

“I’m sorry, that makes it sound like, like you’re my second choice, or—”

“Max, no fate or destiny put us together. It just happened. It’s not like either of us were pure and virginal and we were meeting our soulmate for the first time and a bunch of happily-ever-after fairytale bullshit.” Tori’s voice has grown an edge. “I didn’t really know Chloe. I can’t say she’d be worse for you than me. Damn, I doubt it, no one could’ve been worse for you back then. But we have something in common, now, I guess. Being dead and all.”

“Don’t say that,” Max hisses. “You’re not. I’m going to find out some way, I swear—”

“Sorry.” Tori pulls Max closer. “I’m just...I don’t want you to suffer any more because of me. Maybe my love is bad for you after all.”

“Well, that’s supposed to be my choice. Not the storm’s.”

Tori cracks a smile. “There’s the Max I know. You have a hell of a spine sometimes, you know that?”

“It doesn’t feel that way.”

“Well, right now you’re trying to deny the laws of space and time just to save your fucked-up girlfriend. That takes a lot of vertebrae.”

Max chuckles, wiping her eyes. “I’m gonna do it,” she declares. “I won’t let anything stop me.”

Tori takes one of her hands from the album and squeezes it tight. “Okay. Then go.”

Max takes a deep breath, staring into the photo. It’s harder. She remembers how to do it, and this one won’t stay still when she tries to concentrate. It almost feels like it’s running away from her eyes, flowing and distorting and bunching together like the goddamned T-1000 as she attempts to focus on a single area. A spike of frustration stabs at her mind, adding to the growing headache. Her fingers shake on the edge of the album. “Fuck you,” she whispers. “I’m going in. Fuck you.”

“Uh, Max, you’re talking to a photograph.”

“You can’t keep me out,” Max grunts. “You gave me this. Now it’s mine.”

“Max—”

The photo crystallizes. Max’s vision goes white.

 

Chloe’s warmth behind her.  Chloe’s breath on her neck. The camera in her hands drops to the bed as Max adjusts to where she is, who she’s with, what her body looks like. She’d never considered the physical difference between being eighteen and being thirty-four before, and even though she can feel the chlorine sticking to her skin, _wow_ does she feel energetic. There’s none of that persistent pain in her shoulder or the twinges in her ankle from that nasty fall in 2024. She feels elastic.

“Uh, this is ground control to major Max,” Chloe says, poking her in the stomach. “You having a stroke or something?”

Max feels the headache but somehow it doesn’t matter, and neither does the trickle of blood worming its way through her nostril. All that matters is that she’s here. She’s overpowered the forces that tried to keep her away from Chloe, tried to tear her and Tori apart, and she’s got a chance to finally say what she should’ve said sixteen years ago. Or now.

She turns over and pins Chloe’s arms to her sides. “Woah,” Chloe breathes, her eyes widening as she stares up at Max. “Max, what—”

This kiss feels different from the first one, the real first one, that’s supposed to happen in a couple minutes. It feels different from the last one as they said goodbye. It’s far away from Tori, and yet not, because there’s still faint hints of cigarettes and morning breath. Max could just leave, or just act out the way this morning already went, she knows she can enter into this kind of photo now. But now she can say it. And show it. Even if Chloe won’t remember, even if this never happened.

Chloe’s panting by the time Max lifts herself off of her. She swallows. “Um. Wow, Max. W-what was that for?”

“I love you.” Max runs her fingers through Chloe’s blue hair. Even her voice sounds different. So much bolder, so much less scratchy. She wonders how that happened.

“Gay.”

Max giggles and lowers herself on top of Chloe. She’s blushing. Chloe always was easier to fluster than she pretended. “Only half,” Max says, kissing her again. She feels Chloe’s arms wrap around her waist, like she always wanted. Good. So Chloe had loved her back. Of course she had. She tastes blood on her lips, and she knows Chloe’s gonna question it, because she’s so goddamned sharp and beautiful and dead.

Her vision curls and bubbles and browns at the edges. It burns away, back into white light.

 

Thunder sends a spasm through her, jolting upright from a lying position. A hand reaches up and presses against her waist, as if to take her back down. Max blinks at the darkened environment around her. It smells musty. Her hair’s long and dirty, running down her bare back, and she can feel grime under her ragged fingernails. The sound of rain invades her eardrums, along with something much deeper, much lower, like a train.

“It’ll be here soon,” a throaty voice tells her. “Come on. We said we’d wait for it here.”

Max turns to look at her, lying naked on the bed, knife-cut dirty blonde hair covering her eyes. Her body is pitted and scarred, dirty, like her own. The mattress is hard beneath them.

“Chloe?” Max chokes.

“Second thoughts, Max?”

So it is her.

Max squints, peering further down from where they’re at. She can see...a steering wheel. The windshield, cracking as hailstones the size of marbles smash down into it. An RV. That’s where she is. With Chloe. At thirty-four years old. And there’s a storm outside.

“Max, come on,” Chloe urges, pressing her nails into Max’s stomach. “Please. Let’s just sleep through it.”

Max stands up, pulling out of Chloe’s grasp, wandering to the front of the RV to peer out of the rapidly-dying windshield. They’re in the middle of nowhere. A pine forest, covered in snow. The gas meter reads E.

“Max? Max, please,” Chloe begs, sitting up in her bed as Max turns to face her. “What’s going on?”

Max feels the trickle of blood in her nose again. Chloe leans forward and sighs.

“Max, come on. We know we can’t fix it. Why are you trying now? We agreed.”

“What did we agree on?”

“Oh, fuck.” Chloe stands up. “Remember? We said we’d let it form out here, so it wouldn’t hurt anyone?”

“I—”

“You’re not my Max.” Chloe’s lips purse.

“N-no, I’m not.”

“Christ.” Chloe puts her hand over her eyes. “Good. She was fucking miserable. All because of me.”

“Chloe—”

“Will you fix it?” she pleads, stepping up and putting her hands on Max’s shoulders. “Go back, a-and let me die?”

Max can’t do anything but nod. “Do...do you have the photo?”

“Of course I do.”

Chloe runs back and rummages around the filth on the floor until she manages to find a threadbare leather jacket, then pulls a tiny notebook out of the inside pocket. “She tried to tear it up,” Chloe says as she steps up to Max and flips to a page with the photo taped into it, a clean rip down its center. A blue butterfly, perched on the edge of a bucket, Max's face reflected in the metal. “I got it back. I kept it safe. Just in case. Can you—can you still use it?”

The photo almost immediately focuses to a single point in Max’s vision. “Yes,” she whispers as a tree crashes to the ground outside.

“Then fucking go.” Chloe shoves the notebook into her chest. Max holds it, ready for the jump, but not ready. Not ready to hear Chloe die. Again.

“Hey.” Chloe’s voice is softer now. “Where did you come from?”

“A—a world where I let you die. Back in Arcadia Bay.”

“Then how—”

“I’m the one that made her kiss you first.”

Chloe pushes some of her hair off of her forehead. “Man, you really fucked up hard.”

“Yeah.” The photograph blurs.

“Do me a favor, Max. Forget about me.”

White.

 

“It’s cool, Nathan. Don’t stress. You’re okay, bro, just count to three...”

Max knows what she has to do.

She hunkers behind the bathroom stall, hugs her knees. She waits for the gunshot. Then longer. Longer, as Nathan kicks at Chloe’s body and screams for her to wake up. Longer, as David runs in and tackles Nathan to the ground. She lets herself be led out after Nathan’s in handcuffs. Until she’s certain that no rewind can go back far enough, not even for the Max she created with her meddling. The one who’d loved Chloe so much they were ready to die together.

Red.

 

Max is alone in an unfamiliar bedroom, staring up into the ceiling. She tastes blood. Sees it staining her shirt, her sheets, the pages of the album she has open on her lap. With a groan, she sits up, looking around. The walls are a deep red, the closet doors a dark, fine wood. She’s on a king-sized bed with black sheets. A Bible sits on the bedside table. The desk in the corner appears to belong to her, it’s got canisters of film all over it, along with a pink laptop. She’s wearing a t-shirt with The Price Foundation written on it, and a wedding ring on her left hand. She looks down into the album, and while it’s got a different cover, the photos are all there, vibrating at their strange frequency and jumping in their frames. There’s her and Chloe, that morning after the pool. But as she tries to enter it, to escape whatever reality she’s inhabiting now, her vision blurs red around the edges and a sob rips through her body. Her head burns, and she takes a gasping breath, tossing the album further down the bed.

She has to wait. To recover. But where is she _now_? She stumbles off of the bed, wiping her face off with her hand and just smearing more blood everywhere. She sits down at the desk and opens the drawer, and finds her old journal, yellowing with age, tabs poking up out of the pages. She grabs the first one and pulls it back, beholding a familiar date. A familiar entry, from the Max that had inhabited her body between Chloe’s death and the day she’d decided her fate.

October 7th, 2013.

_I could rewind time. I could’ve saved her. Why didn’t I? I can’t do it anymore, was it a hallucination? I don’t even remember what happened between taking that photo and leaving. What is wrong with me? How could I let her die?_

The next one is new.

October 11th, 2013.

_Another photo. They keep showing up in my bag, or in here. Kate says there’s nothing on them. But that’s bullshit, I can see her. Chloe. She’s in most of them. With her blue hair and everything. Am I going crazy?_

Max reads through her life. Another life. Phrases like ‘involuntary commitment’ and ‘diagnosed with schizophrenia’ and ‘the medicine helps’ pop out at her until 2014 is over and so is the journal. With shaking hands, she sets the journal back in place and opens her laptop. Finds the browser open, to a review.

 _Max Caulfield is most well-known for her self-admitted schizophrenia and the work she does for the mentally ill in the United States through her Price Foundation. What many don’t know is that she is also an exceptional artist in the world of photography. This latest series,_ Bystander Effect _, is haunting in its effective portrayals of good people doing nothing..._

She closes the laptop. She doesn’t want to know. This life didn’t happen. She has to set all the timelines back in order, so that she ends up knowing why she didn’t save Chloe only a week later instead of sixteen years later, so that she can feel guilty about it, so she can try to help Victoria, so she can almost die, so she can make up with Tori, so Tori can die by a drunk driver.

Even without the time-bending bullshit she just did, her head would hurt.

She stands up again, heading back to the photo album. She’s surer on her feet. Maybe she can use her powers again. Get back to where she belongs. As she picks up the album, the bedroom door opens.

“Sweetie? Are you ready for—” A gasp. “What happened?”

Max turns to the voice. She looks _gorgeous_ , which is a strange first thought to have, but it’s there. All sharply dressed-up in black, that gold cross still hanging around her neck. Perhaps a little older, but age barely seems to have touched Kate Marsh. She even wears her hair the same. Her ring matches Max’s.

Max realizes, suddenly, that her face and neck are practically covered in blood. “Uh—”

“Why are you looking at—” Kate stops herself dead as she rushes up to Max, staring into the photo album. “Where did those come from.”

_Kate says there’s nothing on them._

“Where did these come from?” she asks again, shakily taking the album from Max’s hands. “These—these are blank. They’re supposed to be blank.” Her blue eyes move up to stare at Max, searching.

“I—I don’t know how to explain this,” Max admits.

“You weren’t hallucinating.”

“No. I—”

“Max, you said you thought you could turn back time. That’s why...the diagnoses, the pills, everything...it was crazy.” Kate’s whole body is shaking. “But these...these pictures, they can’t exist. They can’t. We argued about throwing them out for so long, they weren’t real, Max, _please_ tell me I’m not just going crazy too.”

“You’re not,” Max says, taking her by the shoulders. “But—”

Kate embraces her, holding her tight. “How is this possible?” she murmurs. “I...I don’t understand...”

“Kate...I’m not your Max.”

Kate draws back, tears shining in her eyes. “What?”

Max struggles to find a way to phrase this in a way that makes sense. “Your Max didn’t figure it out before she lost her powers, but I can travel back in time through photographs. And then I come back to the point that I left, even if I altered time.  And I changed something big. I didn’t live this life with you.”

Kate’s face contorts, but she doesn’t say anything. And then a realization hits Max, and she grips onto Kate’s hands.

“Kate. Did it snow yesterday?”

“M-Max, it’s July.”

Max shudders. This is a stable timeline. Because Chloe’s dead, because the Max she left behind had no powers. And she has to tear it apart, destroy whatever exists between this Max and this Kate. There’s no way to get that Max back. “Kate, I’m so sorry,” she says, taking the album from her hands. “I’m sure she loved you deeply.”

“Max, what are you talking about, of course you—you love me, I love you, we got _married_ —”

Focus on the photo. Not the blood gushing from your nose, or the pain flaring in your head. Catch it again. Make it yours.

“Max, what are you doing, God, you’re covered in blood—”

Red.

 

The camera _clicks._ Max forces herself out. Out of this body, out of this moment. She just holds up her hand and tells herself to go, to let the original Max play this out the way it's supposed to. And she does. She barely even sees Chloe’s bedroom before the red takes over.

 

“Max! Max, wake the fuck up!” Tori pleads, hands clenched on her shoulders as she struggles to open her eyes. She’s back in her bedroom. Tori’s staring down at her, pale, afraid. Deathly afraid. Max rolls her head to the side, sees a mound of bloodstained tissues heaped on her nightstand. “Talk to me, Max,” Tori begs, wiping her face with another tissue. “Please.”

“I-I can do it,” Max says quietly. “I can use that photo.”

“Oh, God, you’re alive,” Tori sighs, and she just bends down and lays her whole body across Max, wrapping her in her arms. “I thought...”

But the blood’s still flowing from Max’s nose, and as she feels it touch her lip, everything she just stumbled through comes crashing back on her.

_Do me a favor, Max. Forget about me._

_Of course you love me, I love you, we got married._

She collapses into uncontrollable sobs. Is this all this power is good for? Giving her horrible memories of things that didn’t happen, giving her guilt over not being able to do the impossible, making her tear apart even the most pleasant and harmless realities just to stay in one place? Just to stay beside a dead woman for a few more days while the weight of what Max has done slowly crushes her? Just to have the power to save the people she loves and not be permitted to use it?

Why is it all so fucking _pointless?_

This life she’d built with Tori, it was so wonderful. Difficult, but rewarding, and full of excitement and love and photography and travel and healing. And now the storm’s coming to take it all away, because Max dared to reach out and prevent something stupid from happening.

The despair is a physical presence in her skull. She can do what she promised. She can spend the next three days with Tori. Then she can reverse her choice and kill her.

And then there will be nothing.


	4. Acceptance

They watch the eclipse from the inside of the Space Needle. Money’s literally not a concern anymore, since this whole reality they’re living is fake, so they charged it to the card and just went when Tori suggested it.

Max reaches across the table and holds Tori’s hand. She’s so quiet. She’s not the woman Tori fell in love with, and yet she is, because this is so much like Blackwell. Max stumbling around, trying to process her guilt and pain and fucked-up memories, while Tori sits by and makes everything worse. At least this time, Tori’s head is clear. She knows, as much as Max does, that her continued existence is wrong, and that it’s going to end soon, and there’s nothing they can do about it. But neither of them want to leave yet. So they’ll let things get worse.

“Tori,” Max breathes, shaking Tori out of her own head. Max is staring at the shrinking sun. “Do you...do you blame me?”

“For what?”

“If I hadn’t gone to get that picture of you, you wouldn’t have been standing—”

“Max, that is the stupidest fucking thing you’ve ever said. And you once said ‘wowzer’ when you came.”

“But it’s _my fault_ —”

“Shit. Happens.” Tori digs her nails into the back of Max’s hand. “You didn’t cause any of this. Not me, not Chloe. There’s no order to this mess. The only thing you’ve done is given me some more time with you.”

“Why couldn’t I have just—when Chloe was getting threatened, I could’ve just hit the alarm without even having powers—”

“ _Max_. The universe has fuckin’ told you that it isn’t your fault. Look at that!” Tori uses her other hand to point out the window. “We were supposed to die, we were always supposed to die. You didn’t decide that. Something bigger did.”

Max hangs her head. Her fingers tighten under Tori’s grasp. Shit. Well, Max was always better than Tori at this comforting shit, anyway. Always been a little one-sided in this relationship. Too much swearing, maybe? Tori usually makes up for it later, with cuddles and makeouts and sex. That always works eventually. Max can tell what’s she’s trying to say, as long as she’s not saying it with her voice.

God, Tori never deserved her.

“Sorry,” she mumbles. “Guess I can’t try to help without being pissy.”

“No, you’re right,” Max says. “I guess I don’t really have any control, do I? I never did.”

Tori hates that note in her voice. It’s too familiar.

“Well, you don’t have to be a god for me to love you,” Tori says. “I loved you before I knew any of this bullshit.”

Max looks over and smiles. Nailed it. For once, Tori said something right.

“Do you wanna get outta here?” Tori asks, tentatively flexing her fingers on Max’s hand.

“The check hasn’t even gotten here yet.”

“Who cares? I’m dead.” Tori flashes her a smile. Somehow, that phrase has gone from terrible to empowering. Fuck it. I’m dead. I can do whatever the hell I want. I could grab Max and shove her against the wall and fuck her brains out in front of this whole goddamned restaurant and it wouldn’t matter because I’m dead and she’s magic.

But Max’s face falls, and Tori realizes that something does still matter. Max does. Making this easier on Max is the only thing she can do now that will affect a goddamned thing in the future. Max is going to have to deal with this, and she can’t do it the way she did last time. No sleepless nights, no little blue pills, no getting wasted and fucked in a parking lot, no years of wandering, fleeing unreal storms. Max has to be okay.

“Sorry,” Tori says again. “I didn’t mean...”

“It’s not your fault. None of it is.”

“It’s not yours, either.”

“I know.”

The waiter comes by and drops off the check while Tori and Max hold hands and stare out at the city. Somewhere behind them, something _thumps_ into the glass.

 

* * *

 

Max chose this pier, sitting across the water from the city. Tori sees the Space Needle, all lit up against the blank night sky, and wonders how many birds have smacked into it today. Does that happen often? What’s the percentage-increase in idiot birds due to Max’s powers versus the norm?

She’d been thinking such things all day, little silly thoughts about this reality they’re unmaking together. She hasn’t spoken any of them aloud. Max doesn’t want to hear it, can’t share in the strange feeling that’s permeating Tori now. Max’s world is all blood and stormclouds, because after this, she has to keep going. To Tori, this is like some kind of pre-death bonus episode, where she gets to watch the world blow up. An apocalypse miniseries, just for her. It does feel like a gift. In some fucked-up kinda way.

She holds Max close, dangling her bare toes over the water. She’s considering asking Max to go skinny-dipping with her. After all, no matter how contaminated the water is, no matter who sees them, Tori’s dead and this never happened. She wants to see Max’s freckled skin against the glow of the city lights. She wants to tell Max every little thing she’s always loved about her. From her hair to her eyes to her little voice to her nose, from her height (just right for Tori) to her shrinking-violet posture to the way she holds her camera when she’s dead certain she’s got a good shot. Her sensitivity, the same thing that’s making her shake under Tori’s arm. Her ability to forgive and love everyone she meets, no matter how they’ve wronged her.

She’s not sure what she should and should not say. Like always, in these moments. When she and Max are sharing silence, but never thinking the same thoughts. So different, so much alike. Sometimes Tori wishes she could silence Max’s demons for her. But she’s one of them.

She just leans further into Max, feeling her body lose tension as they press together. “Thank you,” she murmurs as they shift to face each other. “For everything.”

Max looks away. “You don’t need to—”

“You’ve always been there for me. Even when I was at my worst, you came to try and help me. And even after I hurt you, you came back. You kept giving me chances.” Tori’s voice breaks as the long-thought but never-said flood of words comes out of her. “You’re the best person I’ve ever met. I’m so...I’m so _lucky_. That everything turned out like this. That this isn’t one of those other worlds you went to.”

“Tori...”

Tori falls on top of her and kisses her. She doesn’t want to hear Max beating herself down again, doesn’t want to hear her anxiety and her guilt. She shouldn’t feel that way, even if Tori knows she does. Max deserves nothing but happiness and love. Even if Tori has to force it into her with her lips.

Max is warm beneath her, lazily stretching herself out against the wood, one hand going through Tori’s hair as their tongues slide against each other. Well, now Max is happy. She’s not crying, like she was last night. Good. She’d better stay that way. If Tori’s only going to be a memory in three days, then she’s going to be a good one.

They do end up skinny-dipping, and Tori gets to see what she wanted to see, do what she wanted to do. Max’s cry of release echoes out across the water, and it’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever heard.

Later, when they’re washing the salt off of each other in the hotel shower, an idea comes to Tori. As she rubs Max’s scalp, shampoo bubbles between her fingers, she says, “Think we could get down to Vegas by Wednesday? Get married?”

Max laughs and maybe that’s the real most beautiful thing Tori’s ever heard. “Sure. Soon as we’re done, let’s get plane tickets.”

Tori’s heart pounds in her chest as she slides her hands down Max’s sides. “I dunno. Might take too long to get done...”

As she lays a line of kisses down Max’s spine, she gets to listen to Max’s giggling anticipation. The best sound in the world.

 

* * *

 

They hear about beached whales washing up on the Seattle shore from the cab driver as they head to the airport. But they knew that was coming, too. Tori just holds Max’s hand, and finds it not shaking, not even tense. She tries to read Max’s expression, but it just seems blank. Tori hopes that means that Max is feeling the same way that she is. That acceptance. That drive to turn these last days into wonderful memories, to ignore all the bad shit going down around them and just love.

But she’ll never know what hides inside her head. There’s only so much that Max can tell her in words. All Tori can hold is hope. But as they leave the cab and set off for Vegas together, that hope is in no danger of slipping away.

 

* * *

 

Getting married in Vegas takes more work than Tori always thought it would. They have to rent a car and run all over this shitty stupid hot sweaty city to find rings, the _best_ rings, Max’s insistence, they have to have a butterfly motif. They have to find a church that’s not booked. They have to pick out outfits (neither of them gives a shit about looking traditional, because what the fuck is traditional about any of this, but it’s so important that they look right together). Max goes with a simple black dress, and she takes Tori’s pendant to complete the outfit, and she’s gorgeous. Tori struggles for almost an hour before deciding on another impulse purchase, running out to rent a tux.

There’s no guests, of course there can’t be, this is just for Tori and Max. Even having the priest there feels kind of wrong, but he’s gotta be there so Tori can hear all the things he’s gotta say. To make this real, even if it’s not. Even if Tori’s dead.

“Do you, Tori Chase, take Maxine Caulfield to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

Yes. Yes, in this shabby-ass chapel sandwiched between two tenth-tier casinos. Yes, in this moment of unreality, this suspended timeline where she and Max can do whatever they want. Yes, as she takes Max’s hand and slips the ring onto it. Yes, as she says, “I do,” and forever after, in Max’s mind if nothing else, if there’s no heaven and no God or whatever other shit waits beyond death. Max is the only thing she can see. Taking her hand, slipping the ring on, practically whispering her own “I do,” to the next question.

“You may kiss.”

And they do. Again, and again, until the priest has to break them up, chuckling to himself, saying, “We do have others waiting, you know.” He bids them good luck. He has no idea what luck they already have.

 

* * *

 

So there’s no reception or dance party or fancy foods or happy relatives. What there is is a hotel room, and Max’s phone lying on the nightstand with the speaker facing up, playing an old, an _ancient_ , circular song. The cello weaves in and out of the piano line as they dance in this tiny space, and an imperfect voice adds humanity. It’s tinny and it’s quiet and it fills Tori’s whole world. Ballroom dancing was never her forte, and this isn’t a raging party song, but somehow she finds that the both of them can roll with the melody, with the words.

_Pining for the moon_

_And what if there were two_

_Side-by-side in orbit_

_around the fairest sun_

Max is such a retro hipster geek dork and she’s so wonderful, she knew the perfect song, of course she did. The distance between them closes.

_You, I thought I knew you_

_You, I cannot judge_

Tears are coming, and so is laughter, so are so many things, boiling Tori’s heart in her chest and building pressure in her face. They’re barely moving now, ‘slow dancing’ would be too generous a description, but it doesn’t matter, Tori’s head is flowing more than her body ever could, mixing memories and regrets and hopes and gratitude together to form some indescribable, perfect emotion. Tori is so, so blessed.

The piano gives one final note and fades out. Something else starts, doubtless part of some grand wedding playlist Max had made on the plane or when Tori was running around town. But it doesn’t register. Max’s body heat, their hands clenched together in a vicegrip, their lips meeting, that’s her world now. Max is her world now. She knows what’s in Max’s head, because she can’t possibly _not_ feel this. The permanency of this moment. Their connection finally settling into place, after all these years of struggle, pain, and reconciliation.

They still have one more day. This only occurs to Tori when they’re lying in bed together, bare and sweating and tangled in each other’s limbs. Tori knows what happens tomorrow.

“So, is it honeymoon or honeymoons?” she murmurs into the pillow.

Max laughs, and it feels so good, because even though Tori’s talking about it again, talking about how this will end the world, Max can laugh. Max can look at this whole situation and see the joy. That’s all Tori wants.

 

* * *

 

They drive all day. Hitting up ghost towns for photographs, getting Mojave dust all over themselves, finding hiking trails and just racing each other to their ends. Their energy is boundless. Even the sight of the occasional animal corpse, the birds lying outside of the diners and homes they pass by, can’t slow them down. Tori wants to find the perfect place. To sit under the double-moon and kiss Max and thank her again for the best years of her life. And to say goodbye. She finds herself looking at Max’s camera bag occasionally as they explore the desert, finding the debris of dead houses and lost moments scattered through the back roads. She hopes Max will accept her idea. That they can let this fade out under the twin moons without having to witness the storm again.

The sun’s setting as they climb up this last trail. They agreed it would be the last, hit up Google Maps with their phones and even found themselves a bed and breakfast close by. Even if Tori wants it to end at the peak. What a wonderful place to die. So much better than what the universe had planned, and now the two of them can decide together when Tori has to go. Max may hate her powers, and she has good reason to, but to Tori, this is all right. Ending up here.

By the time they reach the top, they’ve been navigating by phone-light for almost an hour, the moons not quite overhead yet. There’s a perfect place to sit, right there where the rock juts out over the rest of the mountain and gives a view of the moonlit Mojave, Vegas’ glow blotting out the stars on the horizon. The moons sit directly above the edge of the halo.

Tori and Max dangle their legs over the edge, staring out together, huddled up in the cold of a desert night. Tori feels the sweat cooling on her skin, the ache in her legs. Her body’s trying to tell her she’s exhausted, but she doesn’t want to be. She wants Max to remember this moment of peace, calm, serenity, in the face of this eerie sign of doom. It’s beautiful, in its foreboding way. Tori’s glad she gets to see it.

“Max,” she says after a while. “This has been so wonderful.”

She hears Max sniff, and keeps going with, “And I’m so glad I could share this with you. All these years. Even the hard ones. I’m so glad we could do this, together, against God and Fate and everything else that tried to keep us apart.”

“W-what are you saying, Tori?”

“I want...” Tori gulps. “I want this moment to be your last memory of me.”

Max draws in a sharp breath. “Tori—”

“Do you have the photo on you?”

Max nods. “But I—No, Tori. I can’t.”

“Why not?” Tori pulls her close, resting her head on her shoulder. “I want to go. Nothing can top this.”

“It’s—it’s just...” Max stammers. “I’m not ready. Not ready to watch you die again. Not now. I need the storm staring into my face before it’ll seem like anything less than...”

“Okay.” Tori’s heart sinks a little, but she gets it. “Okay, Max. Just...please. When it’s time.”

“I love you, Tori.”

“And I love you. I always will.”

 

* * *

 

The windows start rattling before the sun rises. The rain pounds on the roof. Tori holds Max close.

“Now?” she asks as Max shifts under the covers.

“Not yet.”

It must be hours, before they can hear the roar of something so much greater than an ordinary storm. They hear the owners downstairs, talking about shelter and preparing to come up and wake them. Max gets up and grabs her camera bag when she hears them coming up the stairs, promising to be with them shortly. As soon as they head back down, Tori follows Max out the door, then out onto the street.

It’s so much bigger than she ever imagined.

They’re nestled in the middle of a mountain, winding small-town roads crawling up behind them, and still the tornado looks like it could swallow the world itself. It rips trees out of the ground as it slowly marches towards them, power lines tangling as they fly in the funnel cloud, houses disintegrating as it makes its way through town. Hailstones patter on the ground around them, pounding into Tori’s hair as they walk barefoot onto the road.

“Max,” she yells over the storm. “Now, _please!_ ”

Max reaches into her camera bag and brings out the photo, staring at the tornado all the while. Tori grabs her by the shoulders. “Go!”

Max meets her eyes, hair flying around her face, rain cascading down her cheeks. Her face is immobile. Unfeeling.

“No.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _[The moon is low tonight](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahJ6Kh8klM4) _


	5. Anger

Max has been waiting for that despair to come back. That fear, that total destruction of her will, that utter hopelessness that she experienced when she stood at the lighthouse and watched this same storm destroy her hometown. When it seemed like the only option was killing someone she loved. She’s been hoping for it to come back so that the other thing that’s been building in her for days doesn’t take over.

But right here, right now, staring at this fucking tornado, all that’s in her veins is white-hot rage.

“No.” And quickly, methodically, she tears the photograph in half. In quarters. In eighths. Tori can’t comprehend it, she’s just staring, slack-jawed, as Max releases the shreds into the howling wind and watches them disintegrate into blue particles. Max takes a step towards the storm.

“Fuck you,” she hisses.

“Max, what are you _doing_ —”

“Do you hear me? Fuck you!” she screams at the uncaring world.

All these timelines. All these realities. The universe has been twisting itself into knots to make sure that Max can always set things ‘right’. Giving her otherworldly photographs of different timelines, ensuring she always had the means to unmake the worlds she makes, filling her with doubt and guilt and self-hatred. Creating storms and signs of doom to keep her stepping to its tune, even though it gave her the power to write her own song. Not this time. Not again.

“Max,” and Tori’s voice is so small amid the din of the wind as she steps in front of Max and takes her by the shoulders, “What are you going to do?”

Max doesn’t know, but she does. She’s going to break this cycle. She’s going to show the powers that gave her this ‘gift’ what a huge fucking mistake they made.

The doe stands in Max’s peripheral vision, teetering on the edge of the road. Max has been seeing her for days, and she’s been ignoring her for days. She wishes she had a gun and time to make venison. It stares straight at her, something burning in its black eyes, demanding she undo what she just did. But she won’t. She’ll make it worse.

Fuck the world. Fuck time and space and everything she’s supposed to be keeping together. They want her to kill Tori, like she killed Chloe, all for some ‘mystical purpose’ they dare not explain, all in service to rules they’ve never told her. Well, they gave this to a _human_ , of all things, so they’re gonna have to deal with the consequences. If they’re so fucking high and mighty, they can fix this themselves. Max won’t be their plaything anymore.

She reaches into her camera bag and finds the Blackwell album. She didn’t know then, why she took it with her, but she suspects the universe was pushing that, too. The blue butterfly photo could just as easily stabilize the timeline as destroy it. All she’d have to do is what she’s done before, let Chloe die, and come back to a loving wife and a life she never lived. Fuck that. She’s sick of being blown around by the whims of some higher power.

“Max, please,” Tori sobs, embracing Max and forcing the album against her chest. “Please, don’t do this to yourself, you can’t live with this, I can’t—”

“I’m not going to live with it. I’m dead.”

Tori’s face freezes. “ _Max—_ ”

“You can’t stop me, Tori. Nothing can.” A mad cackle inches its way into Max’s voice as she pushes Tori away and opens the album. She flips through to the back, to the unreal pictures, and she rips them out and throws them to the wind as she searches for the blue butterfly. Tori tries to come forward, to take the album from her hands, so Max just rewinds. Again, and again, until she’s alone out here, facing the storm, flipping through photos. She’s always been alone, anyway. Time itself is twisting to make sure of that. She’s twisting back.

The alternative photos turn to blue sparks as she discards them. They never happened. Neither did this, because it’s Max’s turn to decide what does and doesn’t happen. She hid the butterfly at the very end, she knows she did, but the destruction of the poisonous gifts needs to happen, too. These false memories, these lies, these delusions. Slings and arrows raining on her mind, launched by an apathetic existence.

She looks over the album, into the storm. She hears the door to the B&B slam open behind her, Tori’s strangled call for Max. Before she goes into the photo, she meets Tori’s shining eyes.

“I loved you,” she says as Tori rushes out to embrace her. “More than anything.”

Falling into this moment for the third time is so easy, it doesn’t feel like she’s moved at all.

“It’s cool, Nathan. Don’t stress. You’re okay, bro, just count to three...”

Max breathes, steels herself, quietly sets down the camera and waits. Shallow breaths. She can’t be heard. She has to wait. Has to hear it all, and find the right moment.

“Don’t be scared. You own this school. If I wanted, I could blow it up. You’re the boss.”

The door opens.

“So what do you want?”

“I hope you checked the perimeter, as my step-ass would say.” Slam. Slam. Slam. “Now, let’s talk bidness.”

“I got nothing for you.”

“Wrong. You got hella cash.”

“That’s my family, not me.”

“Oh, boo hoo, poor little rich kid.” Max wants to laugh. She might've agreed, once. Before Tori. “I know you been pumping drugs and shit to kids around here. I bet your respectable family would help me out if I went to them. Man, I can see the headlines now.”

“Leave them out of this, bitch.”

“I can tell everybody Nathan Prescott is a punk-ass who begs like a little girl and talks to himself—”

“You don’t know who the fuck I am or who you’re messing around with!”

“Where’d you get that? What are you doing? Come on, put that thing down!”

“Don’t _ever_ tell me what to do! I’m so sick of people trying to control me!”

Max understands that feeling.

“You are gonna get in hella more trouble for this than drugs—”

“Nobody would ever even miss your punk ass, would they?”

Max’s fingers clench. Nobody will. Not this time.

“Get that gun away from me, psycho!”

_Stop._

Dull ringing in Max’s ears. The color drains out of the bathroom. Her footsteps echo as she comes out from behind the stall, Nathan and Chloe frozen together against the wall. Nathan’s finger is on the trigger, halfway to firing. Max takes Chloe by the shoulders and shoves her to the side, taking her place in front of Nathan. She kneels and touches her forehead to the barrel.

She doesn’t shake. This is not festering guilt, fresh rejection, too much whiskey, and a bottle of Ambien. This is a protest.

The doe walks in through the bathroom door, phasing through Chloe’s body. It stares at her from the side of her vision, fur standing on end.

“Fix this,” Max challenges.

Max releases her hold on time.

Blood spatters against the tiled walls.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Rage, rage against the dying of the light._
> 
>  
> 
> Special thanks to [Ghostexe](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostexe/pseuds/Ghostexe) for ["Nobody Wins, Nobody Wins"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6692137) and ["Ennui,"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6227860/chapters/14269411) responsible for inspiring this vision of the "Save Chloe" timeline and the initial mood/idea that inspired this story, respectively. And another to all of the commentators who've been following Damaged Goods, especially [Aranea Valon.](http://araneavalon.tumblr.com/) If you want to ask questions, leave a comment here, or read my weird emotional state during this incredibly strange month of fanfiction at [the sadbrains blog](http://recourse-ao3.tumblr.com/).
> 
> And as ever, thank you all for reading.


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